Tournament Time

Jackson’s first basketball tournament was last weekend and I’m still processing how I feel about it. That sounds so silly: it was a basketball game. What’s the big deal?

The games themselves were fine. They won 2, lost 1. They all played hard, and with only 2 subs, they got lots of playing time.

Here are a few of my favorite photos of Jackson:

So what’s the problem?

Well…it’s not a problem per se. Just something I’m concerned about. It’s the other kids on his team. They’ve all been playing together for a few years now. So that makes Jackson the new kid. The low man on the totem pole. The newbie.

Some of these kids are going through some real-life, tough issues, that Jackson will never have to walk though. And they see him and a privileged, spoiled kid. A baby, whose mom sits through every practice and takes pictures of him and meets him with a Power Bar at the end of his games. Now, I’m not going to apologize for that, but I get it.

He’s not being bullied by any means. But at this stage of the game, he’s an outsider looking in. He’s trying so hard to fit in. And I can remember what that feels like and it breaks my heart.

I came home from the tournament and told Huz about the day and the next thing I knew, I was crying. This new territory for both me and Jackson. Even when we moved to Puyallup in 2013 and had to switch schools, he had a new BFF the first day. He’s never had a hard time making friends.

He also hasn’t said anything about his current situation with his teammates. And I don’t want to bring it up and plant that seed in his mind, just in case it’s not an issue for him.

But if it is, I just want to fix it.

It’s only the 3rd week of him being on this team, so I may be overreacting. Kids will be kids. And it would only make thing worse for his Smother to intervene and make them be nice to my baby. (But I did think about buying them all Nike Shoes, and maybe then they would like him? Okay, fine. No. Headbands? Maybe…)